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The Documentary Podcast

Guru: Who knew what and when?

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.32.7K Ratings

🗓️ 29 June 2021

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For the last year, BBC journalist and passionate yoga teacher Ishleen Kaur has been investigating allegations of sexual and emotional abuse at the heart of an organisation she once called home. Fellow practitioners share with her their stories of cruelty, rape and even the sexual assault of a child - but she wasn't prepared for what she uncovered next. Join Ishleen on a deeply personal journey into the dark legacy which haunts Sivananda Yoga, one of the world’s most revered yoga schools.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Okay, it's here. The final episode of the BBC's investigation into allegations of sexual abuse inside

0:06.7

one of the world's biggest yoga organizations.

0:09.7

Before we start, a warning. This episode contains graphic sexual references. I am

0:15.1

Eshlene Cor and you're listening to Guru on the BBC World Service. This is

0:21.5

episode 3, who knew what and when?

0:26.0

I reported the incident and his response was damn not again.

0:35.0

She loved her. was damn not again. She laughed at me. She told me, this is nothing, you know, it happens to like all women.

0:40.0

One of the board members said to me, well, he already said he's not going to do it anymore.

0:46.0

What do you want is blood? Okay, so let's go back to the beginning. In episode one, I spoke to Julie Salter, who published an account on Facebook of her abuse by Swami Vishnu.

1:05.0

He was the founder of Shiva on the yoga, guru, pacifist, and according to at least three women, a rapist.

1:14.0

He asked me to lie down next to him.

1:16.0

I said, I don't understand.

1:18.0

And in spite of everything in my body saying,

1:21.0

no, and my brain crying out, my mind I did.

1:25.0

Before he died in 1993 Vishnu created an executive members board or the EBM to be the caretakers of the

1:35.1

organization after he was gone. It took some 20 years and that Facebook post

1:41.0

before these caretakers were forced to admit publicly what Julie

1:44.8

says they had known for years.

1:49.8

So to help unpack how this played out, I want to take you to a sport that once occupied a very special place in my heart.

1:59.0

Thank you.

2:02.0

Okay, I'm here outside the Shivenanda Yoga Center in Putney in South London.

2:08.9

I haven't been to this place in over a year. I feel very overwhelmed with emotions, with anger, pain,

...

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